Dan Sharp Mysteries 4-Book Bundle (48 page)

“Where will I sleep?”

“Wherever. Pick a bed or a couch and make yourself comfy when the time comes. There are blankets and pillows in the closet. You can sleep on that couch there” — he pointed out a long grey sofa that resembled a giant cigar with back support and end flaps — “if
you want something really snazzy. Big designer number.
It cost me ten thousand dollars.”

Jags pulled something from a satchel and tossed it at Dan. “Here,” he said. “In case you get bored.”

Dan looked down at a copy of Jags' autobiography with a happy-looking Jags beaming at the world from the cover.

“Nice shot,” he said.

“Yeah. It's not the real me, though.” Jags shrugged and looked around the space. “It's too fucking quiet in here.”

He flicked on the stereo. Something loud and punk filled the room. Dan found it irritating. He preferred the Telemann. He followed Jags into a bedroom that doubled as an office. A skull sat on a bookshelf, face turned to the wall. Dan picked it up. The thing leered at him. It looked real, though it might have been a monkey skull, he reasoned. Wasn't it illegal to own human remains?

He looked at Jags. “What's this for?”

“Gift from an obsessive fan.
Memento mori
. You know what that means?”

“Sure. ‘Remember you will die.'”

“That's right. Not something we can afford to forget. Death comes to us all.”

Dan set the skull back on the shelf, aiming the eye sockets at the room like twin camera lenses. “A bit maudlin, isn't it?”

Jags looked up and grimaced. “Yeah. Could you just turn it back around?”

Dan angled the sepulchral leer to the wall. Over in a far corner, a noose dangled from an exposed ceiling beam.

“And that?”

Jags sipped his bourbon. “Just a prop. From one of my tours.”

“Nice. Adds to the décor.”

“That's why I like you. You don't stand there and pretend it's raining when someone's pissing on your head.”

Dan laughed. “I've heard it said in much less flattering terms. Thanks for the literary spin on it.”

Jags lifted his glass and drank. “Any time.”

The music got raunchier as Jags got drunker. He shifted his focus to a pile of papers, riffling through them — who knew what lay there, maybe a year's worth of laundry lists or a brilliant set of song lyrics never heard by the public — leaving Dan on his own.

Jags' agent called. Jags answered but left the music turned up loud while they talked. They seemed to be quarrelling over something, though it might simply have been his way of conversing over loud music. Dan went outside, letting the screen door bang. If Jags wanted noise then he could provide a reasonable soundtrack without much difficulty.

Jags' voice followed him out of the house and into the yard. The surrounding brush was dense and led to an even denser forest not far off. The tree line was broken occasionally by barren rock that cropped up here and there. A crescent moon hung in the sky. Dan could never remember when it was on the wane and when newly reborn. Waning, he guessed.

Ralph got up and followed Dan around the back of the cottage. It was nearly dusk. A bat flitted through the air, hungry for its first taste of insect. Dan liked bats, even if other people feared them. On the other hand, he disliked bugs. Bats ate a third of their weight in insects each night. If bats went extinct, he reasoned, the world would be overrun with creepy-crawlies. Therefore it was better to like bats.

He returned with a few pieces of firewood in hand and dropped them beside the fireplace. Jags finished his call and began to make supper. The meal wasn't particularly memorable as far as Dan was concerned, having been spoiled by Trevor's gourmet skills the past few months. During dinner, Jags kept the bottle of bourbon beside his plate. He refilled his glass as soon as it went down a bit. He drank much faster than Dan had even in his heavy drinking days. His speech soon got a little rough around the edges.

After supper he egged Dan into a game of chess. Dan hadn't played in years and knew his game was rotten. Even drunk, Jags beat him after a half-dozen moves. Jags sneered and put the board away. He went out on the porch and lit a cigarette, staring off into the darkness outlining the trees.

Eventually, he came back in. He sat with his glass and tilted the bottle toward him, sending an amber rivulet across the table. He didn't bother to clean it up. It ran over the edge and onto the floor. Dan had seen this sort of drunken behaviour before. He wasn't going to start pandering to an overgrown slob. Besides, it wasn't his cabin.

As Jags got sloppier, Dan was reminded of how his father used to drink himself to sleep. Or to oblivion, whichever came first. The drinking went on till Dan left home at seventeen. Presumably it continued till his father's death ended the long, sad saga.

Dan looked over where Jags lay with his head on the table. As far as he was concerned, his bodyguard duties didn't include putting drunken rock stars to bed. He could stay there till morning and wake with a crick in his neck or maybe he'd be lucky and have to get up to puke in the middle of the night and crawl off to the bedroom. Either way, Dan was prepared to leave him at the table to fend for himself, invoking the self-righteousness of an ex-drinker.

It felt late. There'd be no fire tonight. Dan turned off the stereo. He went around the room closing the shutters, before putting out the lights and settling on the ten-thousand-dollar-sofa. It didn't feel any more comfortable than a regular sofa. Jags could have bought something for five hundred dollars and put the rest of the money to better use.

He picked up Jags' book. It was an engaging read, but his depiction of childhood sounded almost too ideal. It included everything but the gingerbread house and the devoted mother wearing an apron day and night, at least until Jags ran away as a teenager and found himself in Toronto's Queen West punk scene. What could have been more normal than that?

Jags was harder on no one more than himself. He was candid about his drug abuse and his relationship problems. The whiffs of scandal felt more like true confessions from a friend with a problem to confide, rather than a plea for sympathy. When it involved others, Jags was credible and kind in his reportage. Dan had read more than half the book by the time he put out the light and lay on the pillow, wondering how long it would take to fall asleep.

He stirred and lifted his head in darkness. Something had woken him: a ghostly hand on his throat, a spirit visiting his dreams. His watch glowed: 1:33. He'd been asleep for two hours. Ralph lay on the rug beside the couch, alert.

Jags was no longer at the table. The bedroom door was closed. An unearthly sound spread through the room. It was Ralph, growling long and low. He was up now and staring at the door. The fur on his back bristled. Inside, they were safe from prowling animals, Dan knew. Not even a bear could get in, unless it happened to be able to pick locks. Still, knowing how isolated they were from the world and how complete the darkness was outside left him feeling vulnerable. He wondered what sort of people might be in the area looking for uninhabited cabins to rob. The alternative could be worse. What if someone had spotted Jags' car and thought they were easy marks out there in the middle of nowhere?

Ralph continued the low, sustained growl deep in his throat. Dan pulled on his jeans and crept over to the window. He stood looking out on total blackness.
If there was anything out there, he couldn't see it.
He thought he heard Jags snoring in the other room.
A sleeping drunk was a happy drunk.

The wind blew around the cabin, a low drone that died to a whisper before picking up again. It worried Dan. If there were anything prowling outside,
he wouldn't hear it.

Ralph's growling rose to an eerie falsetto whine. Clearly he too was worried by the possibilities. Dan turned to him.

“What is it, buddy? Do you smell something?”

Encouraged by Dan's words, Ralph went to the door, sniffing and scratching at the sill.

“I don't think it's a good idea for me to let you out,” Dan told him. “Whatever's out there could be a lot bigger than you. And it might like to eat dogs.”

Ralph looked questioningly at him. Dan's hand crept over his head and patted his neck.

“Glad you're here, Ralphie,” he said. “When we get home, you get an extra bone.”

A light rain began to fall. It grew steadily stronger as the wind increased. Dan continued to watch out the window. Shapes defined themselves in the darkness, the black outline of trees shivering in the gusts, the shed with the car farther off. He didn't check his watch again till he felt his legs tire. He was shocked to see the time: 3:46 a.m. He'd been standing and staring out the window for more than two hours. It seemed like he'd been there for about twenty-five minutes. Time had slipped past while he was focused on the darkness outside. Somehow, it had contracted and pulled him in with it. Maybe he was being absorbed into a black hole. Maybe it would seem like that in the tomb.

He stood there a while longer, reluctant to give up his vigil. Finally, the weariness in his legs told him to stop. Nothing more would happen tonight. He lay down again, trying to remain alert and conscious. He was asleep again in minutes.

Morning, a shaft of light bisected the gloom, lighting up Dan's torso and the blankets that clung to the supple musculature of his frame. He looked up at the opening overhead. It made him think of a bus stop ad featuring a teary-eyed, dirty-faced child holding out an empty bowl. “Honey, do we really need another skylight?” the ad asked all those yuppies intent on bettering their homes.
Do we really need another anything?
Dan wondered. Whenever the rich got into trouble, Dan's conclusion was invariably that they had too much time and money on their hands. Otherwise they'd be too busy earning a living like everyone else to get in hot water. Kennedy curse? What Kennedy curse?

Dan looked out the window. Whatever had been out there a few hours previously, there was no sign of it now. He picked up Jags' book and resumed where he'd left off. Jags was well into his career successes and excesses by now. The celebrity gossip was a bit more salacious, but nothing that would make an enemy of its author. The tone grew darker as the price of fame left its mark: anxiety, depression, drugs, and broken relationships. Perhaps he hadn't been exaggerating when he'd said he just wanted a normal life, or some semblance of it.

Jags still hadn't stirred by the time he finished. Dan clanked around in the kitchen, made some scrambled eggs and toast and put them on a platter in the middle of the table. He was just pouring the coffee when Jags' head appeared through the crack.

“Help yourself to breakfast,” Dan told him.

“I'll do that.” Jags looked distractedly around. “What happened to the party?”

“You're what's left of it.”

Jags didn't say another word till he'd poured himself a cup of java and downed half of it. He looked over at the coffee table where Dan had left the book.

“Did you read it?”

“Yes. It kept me up most of the night.”

“Any good?”

“It's well-written. Extremely visual. You've got a good writing style.”

“You sound like a connoisseur. What kind of books do you read?”

“I like a lot of things: Proust, Cormac McCarthy, Richard Ford. But it's not that kind of book. This is just nice, clean prose with a straightforward outlook and some very convincing opinions about music and art that do you justice. I enjoyed every word, and that's rare with me and books.”

“A critic, huh?”

Dan pushed the platter of eggs toward him. “No, just a discerning reader. You can fit in only so much reading time in this life, so it's important to make every book count.”

“A good way of looking at it.”

“Anyway, that's my take, for what it's worth. Maybe in another twenty years you'll be ready to write Part Two.”

Jags smiled ruefully. “Let's see if I live that long.”

Dan opened the front door and stood on the porch. “Ralph thought he heard something in the night,” he remarked, looking across at the tree line.

Jags came toward him. His expression was dark. “Like what?”

“Hard to say. He got quite worked up. He was growling a lot. I thought there might have been a bear prowling around.”

Jags snagged a pair of binoculars hanging from the
wall. He scanned the trees anxiously then stared at
the ground leading up the path to the porch. “We'll go,” he said after a moment.

“What?”

“We'll go back to town. It's probably not safe here.”

“If it was just a bear, it'll be gone by now,” Dan protested.

Jags shook his head. “They come back sometimes. They're drawn to things. Smells, dead animals. Something always brings them back.”

“Up to you,” Dan said, bewildered. “But we're probably safe here.”

Jags shook his head. “It was a bad idea. I shouldn't have asked you to come.”

Dan watched him, wondering what was going on in his head. Jags continued to look around, as though trying to convince himself of something. He seemed spooked.

“Yeah, we'll go. It's too fucking quiet out here anyway.”

Jags dropped Dan off at home. The house was still and silent when he entered. Ralph scampered in, looked around for Ked and Trevor, then resigned himself to a boring afternoon lying on his kitchen bed. Dan checked his messages. There was one from Ed, apologizing for disturbing him and saying the police were pressuring him to ask Dan again about his sources. Dan didn't feel up to returning the call. Donny had left a message asking him to phone. He sounded anxious. Dan guessed it had to do with Lester.

Sure enough, when he called, Donny told him Lester had left a message on his machine, saying he was being kept in the house against his will.

He sounded agitated. “I could kick myself for not being here when he called.”